The Secret Weapon for Business Success: Online Review Management

When your friend tells you about an over-priced restaurant with horrible service and small portions, do you go running out to try it?

Of course not!

Word of mouth and online reviews are the bread and butter of your business. As much as 90% of online users read and consider reviews before making a purchase. With such a staggering figure, you can’t afford to have a bad rep.

Online review management helps you to handle the good with the bad to help save your online reputation.

Read on to find out more about why you need online review management.

Positive Reviews Matter Too

Don’t get hung up on just how much a bad review will impact your business. Positive reviews can work miracles to counteract bad ones.

And this is where online review management can help. A review management company will encourage happy customers to provide positive feedback on your website.

Happy customers don’t always take the time to write a review for your company. Why? Because they were pleased with your service, they received what they needed and they moved on. Unhappy customers are more inclined to take to the keyboard in a tirade against you.

Once an online review management company collects a number of positive reviews, they’ll get them to where they need to be — that means onto platforms such as Google, Yelp, Facebook, and Twitter, just to name a few. Here, current and potential customers will see how awesome your company is.

Handle Bad Reviews with Grace

Your initial reaction when reading a less than positive review of your business is to deny the claims and defend yourself. Fight the urge to do this.

By engaging your negative reviewer in a back and forth exchange, you’re not doing yourself any favors. You’re actually coming off to readers as petty and unprofessional. Instead, allow an online review management company handle these negative reviews with patience and grace.

One way to combat negative reviews is to do it as soon as possible. The less time a negative review lingers out in cyberspace, the less likely a potential new customer will see it.

If you acknowledge an unhappy customer and apologize for their negative experience, you have a good chance of changing their minds about your company. An online review management company can alert you to any negative reviews so you can handle them immediately.

Another great way to counteract negative reviews is to ask long-time customers to write positive ones. Flooding your website with five or six positive reviews will overshadow a single negative one.

Find the Root of the Problem

You don’t want to be combating negative reviews forever. If you can find the root of the problem, you can address specific issues.

Are unhappy visitors complaining about similar things? Are their claims legitimate? Knowing exactly what the complaints are is a key component in managing your online reputation.

An online review management company can help you track the source of the problem and make the appropriate changes.

Quality and Quantity

Online reviews are the one place where quantity is as important as quality.

The quality of your online reviews doesn’t just mean having five stars. Most reviews have an area for customers to write something about their experience. Potential buyers and users want to hear about the user experience.

Quality reviews should include things like:

Product description

Comparison of similar brands and products

Ease of use

Drawbacks

Allowing customers to highlight both the pros and cons of your business in their reviews is okay. It shows you’re not afraid of honest feedback.

The number of reviews your website has (quantity) is equally as important as the quality. A lot of reviews show visitors that you’ve had a lot of traffic and customers. It gives your business credibility and an online presence.

Be sure your online review management company is properly handling your reputation and the number of reviews coming in. This can be done in several ways including incentives for customer reviews and creating a customer experience worth writing about.

Think Outside the Box

The reviews showcased on your website are important, but they aren’t the only place reviews can be found. And if potential customers can find them, you’ll want to make sure your online review management efforts are aware of them and what they’re saying.

There are a lot of third-party review companies online. These are websites and blogs whose sole purpose is to use and review products. Some people see these platforms as the Holy Grail of online reputation — if their favorite blogger says a product stinks, it must really stink.

Take the time to visit these third-party sites and see what they’re saying about you. You may not be able to respond directly on the site, but you can capitalize on customer feedback to make adjustments to your methods.

You can also set up an automated system that showcases positive reviews on social media and your website. They are then indexed by major search engines like Bing and Google. This ensures you’re always putting your best foot forward.

Online Review Management Can Boost SEO

Using Rich Snippets is a great way to do this. Rich Snippets is a term used to describe structured data markup added to your HTML. This data helps search engines better understand what your site contains.

You might be wondering how Rich Snippets can help with SEO. This data will actually alert search engines to your reviews and allow you to mark-up the reviews you want to appear first. When someone searches for a review of your product, your website will likely appear at the tops of the SERPs.